Archival Resources for LGBT+ : Home

Loyola University Special Collections & Archives:

In 1984, WYES, New Orleans' public television station, began broadcasting Informed Sources, a program devoted to in-depth discussion of the news by local journalists. The Informed Sources collection consists of DVDs, originally recorded in both VHS and Betacam formats. The size of the collection expands as the show continues to broadcast and the programs are transferred from WYES to the Loyola University Monroe Library Special Collections & Archives for cataloging and safekeeping.

The Phil Johnson Editorials Collection for WWL-TV New Orleans contains some 10,000 editorials written and delivered by Phil Johnson from 1962 to 1999. The daily editorials represent 37 years of local, national and international political history. The nightly editorials represented a bold step in television news when first aired, and set the local CBS affiliate apart from other stations. Johnson, a Loyola University graduate and Harvard University Neiman Fellow, served at WWL-TV as news director, documentary producer and assistant general manager.

Relevant content includes editorial copy from July 25, 1973 covering the arson attack at the Upstairs Bar in the French Quarter, the deadliest attack on LGBT people in United States history.

Local and Regional Resources:

Amistad Research Center is located within Tulane University's Tilton Memorial Hall and is the nation's oldest, largest and most comprehensive independent archive specializing in the history of African Americans and other Ethnic Minorities.

The Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) is the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive research center for New Orleans and supports the teaching, research, and community-building missions of Tulane University by collecting, preserving, and making easily accessible library and archival resources relating to the study of Louisiana.

LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana promotes and encourages the protection and preservation of materials chronicling Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Community in Louisiana. Provides an information directory of LGBT+ archival depositories in Louisiana and a regularly updated bibliography listing periodicals, books, and other print publications concerning the LGBT+ community of Louisiana.

Databases

Drawn from hundreds of institutions and organizations, including both major international activist organizations and local, grassroots groups, the documents in the Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 present important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. The archive illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community. Historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals are featured, as well as publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. The archive also contains personal correspondence and interviews with numerous LGBTQ individuals, among others. The archive includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more.

Online Resources

Founded in 2010, the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony digitize and make oral histories and testimony of same-sex and same-gender attracted women available online, inclusive of Two Spirit, queer, bisexual, and lesbian women, transmen, and others.

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Worcester, Massachusetts at the College of the Holy Cross, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than twenty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.

A comprehensive directory and guide to LGBT primary source and archival material repositories in North America created by the Society of American Archivists’ Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (LAGAR).

The LGBT Community Center National History Archive serves to preserve the history of the LGBT community and its rich heritage. Founded in 1990 by volunteer archivist Rich Wandel, the archive provides a look into the lives and experiences of LGBT people throughout the years. The Center Archive contains a wide range of media from as early as 1920, including photography, correspondence, news clippings, radio soundbytes, video broadcasts, and personal journals.

Founded in 1952, the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers.